I am sure they will delete this. Positive in fact, but as some of you know, Marvel in its brilliance killed our man, Nightcrawler.

This will not do.

I posted this, as Lord Magnus Rex there

I have been a dedicated collector since 1983. X-books have been my comic of choice since Jim Shooter was in office. We've been through a lot, and month to month I have placed my money on the great altar of comics.

I've been there through good and bad, thick and thin, and month to month I have gotten your comics.

Killing Nightcrawler, my favorite character for 27 years, I am forced now to exert the only control I have. Effective immediately, I am cancelling all my pulls from your company, with the singular exception of Chris Claremont's X-men Forever. As a consumer, you have placed me in this position where I can only react with the only power I have, ending my financial support of your company.

In the past 7 years, your company has fallen from grace, and not by inches. I pick up the books these days and all I see is death, and nonsense. Your storytelling has fallen to 'kill something bigger or better or more important' as a paltry attempt to lend meaning to otherwise mediocre or poor writing. I deeply regret I will be missing Peter David's excellent writing, but it falls into the titles of your standard universe, which you just don't seem to care about anymore. Killing Nightcrawler is just another useless death in a badly written attempt to shock and try to force us to throw more money after bad.

I hope you reconsider and this death is another simplistic smoke and mirrors trick, like last year when you stabbed him with a spirit knife or something inane like that. But lets face it, you haven't really respected any of Dave Cockrum's additions to the universe, even though you built a corporation on his and Claremont's work.

Deadly Genesis? Poorly written, Bad shock comics, ugh

Killing Corsair and destroying the Starjammers? Why? Did you just feel the need to destroy anything Dave added to the universe?

And now Nightcrawler? You should be ashamed, and I can no longer in good conscious send you my 50 to 75 dollars a month.

My hope is that Joe Quesada reins in the idiocy that has become the x-books writing, and whomever is and has been responsible for this story editting is summarily sent to the help wanted adds looking for a new job.

Until this is fixed, I will only be spending my money in the universe where Dave's creations still exist, Claremont's X-men forever, and I can save the money I was spending on these books hoping they would get better.

I suppose I am too innocent in the ways of the world -- I don't hang out at Marvel forums -- but why would they delete your post? To me, it was a model of restraint. All you did was express a consumer's opinion, with tact and no swear words which might offend Old Broads or kiddies. No death threats, no spewing of vitriol .... I don't get it.

Thanks for the attempt, at any rate.

"Humanity is a parade of fools, and I am at the front of it, twirling a baton." From Chapter 9 of _Brother Odd_ by Dean Koontz / from Chapter 10: "Life you can evade; death you cannot."

It's the Marvel forums. They don't want people saying bad stuff on their own forums. So they pull over-critical posts off of them. Easy as that. Can't really be angry, no one HAS to give you a stage to express yourself :3

Oh, but now the Marvel message boards are all dead!!!! DEAD!!! Shot on the courthouse doorsteps, killed by the Legacy virus, dead via impalement and following negligence, or however! It's heart-rending, gut wrenching, tragic. Not a dry eye will be found.

And then they'll get better.

Meddle not with the heartstrings of fans, for we are powerful and hold your pursestrings.

I am a moderator on the Marvel forums, and perhaps I can clear this up.

The post wasn't deleted, but was indeed edited for spoilers. A post is only deleted if it violates the board rules.

I read your post, PirateKurt, and I saw nothing wrong with it.

Angelique wrote:Oh, but now the Marvel message boards are all dead!!!! DEAD!!! Shot on the courthouse doorsteps, killed by the Legacy virus, dead via impalement and following negligence, or however! It's heart-rending, gut wrenching, tragic. Not a dry eye will be found.

And then they'll get better.

Pure coincidence. The forums are being updated. I had to sit through an hour long moderator training session because of it.

neling4 wrote:I am a moderator on the Marvel forums, and perhaps I can clear this up.

The post wasn't deleted, but was indeed edited for spoilers. A post is only deleted if it violates the board rules.

I read your post, PirateKurt, and I saw nothing wrong with it.

Angelique wrote:Oh, but now the Marvel message boards are all dead!!!! DEAD!!! Shot on the courthouse doorsteps, killed by the Legacy virus, dead via impalement and following negligence, or however! It's heart-rending, gut wrenching, tragic. Not a dry eye will be found.

And then they'll get better.

Pure coincidence. The forums are being updated. I had to sit through an hour long moderator training session because of it.

[Edited on 1/5/10 by neling4]

Thanks Nelling, I appreciate that. Paty is waiting a month before responding to it, she is more cautious then I. I am just so severely dissappointed, and sickened by this, X-men killing left and right, busloads of children dying, useless plot regurgitations of overpowered super-invincible-omnipotent villians that were too much just Poofed back into existence, and then Kurt, the only character who smiles, killed as a Nick Lowe Marketting trick I'd bet... I just can't see rewarding Marvel inc with my hard earned money for this unforgivable blunder, and malicious treatment of a legacy of a man we all here respect who's work and characters have always been undervalued by the company who milked his creations for millions and failed to give him his propper due. The exact same could be said of the treatment of Claremont. I wish I could win the lottery, and build a comic company. paty and I have joked about this, call it, OFC 'Official comics' but really, it's old farts' comics and offer work to any of the creators we all love and miss, whom the industry has just failed to give homage to. People like Claremont, Gene Colan, Roy Thomas, Paty, Len wein, Marv Wolfman, and numerous others, essentially give them free rein to create and lots of 'business' meetings in I dunno...lets say the Bahamas... since we're pipe dreaming.

Marvel has desecrated Dave's creations, and I can't reward that financially. I hope someone somewhere in that company realizes the damage they've done. Because I love comics. I have been a fan of Comics since I was 13 years old, 27 years ago I got my first issue with Uncanny 178. Tomorrow morning, I go to the local shop...and cancel my subscriptions.

I just want to go on record here Pirate Kurt by saying I too am severely disappointed, horrified with the decision.... But I didn't give up hope.

Because by the end, as awful as they have been to Kurt on some days, they have given him some great runs and I think they will feel the sting of not having him around soon... Very soon.

I feel they are leading up to a grand return, with the flowers DedicatedFlower received (granted it could be a kindly friend trying to make her feel better, but I buy that it's actually Marvel being they do tend to make up to Fans often), and also with Colossus and others' demands that someone return to Limbo and get Illyana. For all we know, Magik may have cooked up a way to get our beloved elf back while she was down there.

Or better yet, maybe Kurt's last great deed will be to risk his life and religion to journey to Limbo. Who knows? All I do know is, like you, I have also stopped buying all X-Books. For me though, it's simply because they're just going in a direction I do not like. With a pointless death, a series of mismanagements dating back to Austen's years and even further, a total mangling of Spider-Man, combined with an attempt to make up for it by putting him ON THE X-TEAM.... it seems fruitless.
I trust that Marvel will respond to the fans quickly enough to get the hint. Our hint.

One thing comic editorships learn quickly is that pissing off the fans is a big mistake. DC makes wise decisions, like seeking the fans' opinions before ending a character (such as Jason Todd), and Marvel would do well to learn from them. My Ultimate Titles are my last breath of hope in a constantly running out track, tired-old-story that Most of canon has been. But with all comics, you have to take the good with the bad, as you have mentioned in one of your earlier posts.

I realize with the years and experience you have invested, the blow is harder for you, especially more so 'cause of what a good personal friend you are/were to both Paty and Dave, but I sincerely doubt this death will last more than a year. If that. I can't see them going too long with it, it is pointless, and I'm sure the editors know it.

It reads like a decent death and on a superficial level is meaningful (The man of faith dies for "Hope", yeah yeah very clever), but the editors HAVE TO HAVE KNOWN it was a pointless kill. Cable, or someone who would benefit in furthering the story rather than more Logan-Hate would have made much more sense.
However; it seems the writers were not all on board but if it was something that "needed to be done" (a.k.a. the hammer came down and we are contracted in), so it looks like they banned together to give him as appropriate a send off as possible.

I think the writers have enough power to go on the boards, pick out what we have said, and fling it in Joe's face and say "Look! See! We told you it was a bad idea! Now LET US BRING HIM BACK."

And it will happen. Yost's will be done.

p.s. don't write at one thirty in the morning on a board while watching Dr. Who... bad for the brain

Yost's will be done???Geez!
Gimme a break! Yost's will is obviously warped. either he was told what to do by editorial... something Marvel vehemently denies, but insiders know that a lot of plotlines are now dictated by committee... which is NOT a way to write comics...OR he did this himself.

Now, rumor has it that ti was a marketing ploy of Lowe's. wonderful. they have killed so many characters, so often, that in the Marvel Universe, death has no meaning any more. Yes, Dave and Chris killed the original Thunderbird... and that was the biggest surprise and shock since the death of Gwen Stacey! But back then... in "the day"...we weren't allowed to use gratuitous death as a money grubbing ploy... which, it appears is now de rigeur for every book every other isue, since good storytelling has gone by the board.

the House of Ideas that I worked at ... and that Dave worked for... is, as far as I am concerned, DEADER than Nightcrawler!... or at least as Nightcrawler is supposed to be for their marketting ploy. Dave and Chris "killed" Thunderbird for a reason... not a marketing ploy. Having established a Native American hero, and a specific tribe, at that, they both found they didn't have any reference... GOOD reference...for the tribal customs, religion and such of the character. Remember, this was back in the dark ages before computers... or, at least, when computers were just being built and were taking up whole floors in large buildings! They didn't want to do him wrong...or portray bogus white man's versions of NA culture...so they took him out as a hero... BUT WE NEVER SAW A BODY!!! Personally I think his totem, the thunderbird, snatched him away to take him back to the people and use him more properly to teach the culture of his forefathers to the children... instead of having him brain boggled by Xavier... as I suspect happened to wisk Storm away from her people in Africa, Colossus, his family in the USSR, etc. We know Xavier could do it back then... and he did... controlling everyone for his ends. Nighty, of course, came willingly, since he was being chased by people with pitchforks and torches ...and couldn't have gotten away any other way!!! ... she says with tongue planted firmly in cheek...not even... gee, dare I say it? TELEPORTING!!!... gee whiz! his MUTANT POWER!!!

But killing off a character... especially one of the most heroic of the bunch... as a freakin' money grubbing ploy???!!!

My first thought when I heard they had actually committed literary suicide was "Hmmmm... now that they have shown how greatly they value Dave's creations, ... and Marvel having actually acknowledged that Dave created Nighty years before he came to Marvel...I wonder when the copyrights and trademarks will revert to the Cockrum Estate... and allow people who value the character do something with him. We are presently working on more Futurians stories... Dave having drawn and written a new book just before his untimely death... the last two pages of unfinished art having been finished from his thumbnail breakdowns by none other than Pirate Kurt, who is rapidly becoming a very accomplished comic book artist in addition to his being a very excellent graphic artist. this guy has talent! but I digress...

So... I figured, nighty would be a grand addition to the Cockrum stable... ahhhh but, he is still extant in Claremont's X Men Forever....sigh... foiled again!

I am totally torn. While my main man, Magneto, is still in the premiere title... although the kneeling to cyke was so outre as to be ludicrous...although it COULD BE a ploy of Magneto's...or maybe not...who knows, anymore? ...I am faced with a quandry. My supreme urge is to kiss off the mediocre crap that passes for X books... like PK is about to do... and only read X Men forever and the new upcoming New mutants Forever...which Chris is supposed to write and which is supposed to see print in August, I believe...BUT this is MARVEL! Not the seasoned editors and creative artists and writers of yore... of MY day...no! this is the Marvel of today. Editors who are not worthy of that title cuz all they know how to do is push paper and brownnose with people who have unwarranted power and who have their own agendas... some of whom were placed there by Hardass... of hated memory. He, who in eighteen months, tried to tear down the Universe that Claremont built for seventeen years!!! And don't get me started on the disrespect whith which Claremont is treated at Marvel !!! He hangs in there trying to salvage SOME of his creations and thereby suffers the slings and arrows of people who cannot write, so called "creators" who can only recycle...badly... former storylines that HE used to good effect! The Writer Emeritus of the X Universe... who BUILT the playground these yoyos are playing so carelessly in!

This latest outrage is just one more nail in Marvel's coffin. I think an awful lot of people who have been hanging on hoping for a decent storyline that doesn't involve a totally mind- raped and suckered Cyclops, an absent, puling and ineffective Storm, an omnipresent and thoroughly disgusting and overused Wolverine, and the pervasive T and A of Emma, are gonna finally pack it in and decamp because of this latest stupidity. You can only flip the birdie at the fans for sooo long, Marvel.

One can only hope for a mass exodus...it would be the only thing Marvel would understand. Bucks... or, rather, lack thereof. Is that, me? the diehard Marvelite, calling for a boycot? Oh, you betcha! In spite of my main man, Magneto, being around...this smarmy and unprofessional thing done to Nighty, the heart and soul of the X Men... no... it is not wolverine...the heart and soul of the X Men is Nightcrawler!!!...for mere love of money just tkes the cake!!! It should not go unpunished. Yeah... the only thing they will understand is a boycot! Apparently they will do anything smarmy for money... sooooooo...

OK... we know that marvel has always been money grubbing and smarmy...but when it was done with a wink and a giggle, it was tolerable. this has changed... it is now being done with derision at the fans and nasty finger pointing and sneers of imaginary godhood.

they just don't get it, people. They don't get that it is not the writers or the artists or the editors who are important here. It is the CHARACTERS!!! The people who the fans invite into their homes and hearts every month... whom they KNOW better than they know members of their own families ... that matter! When they play around with the feelings of the fans, as they have done over and over for the last decade, they are playing with a fire they do not understand or respect. If they were fans once, as many say they were, then they should know better than to consistantly do this kind of shit with a sneering smile on their faces." Oh, the fans will yell and scream and get over it and keep buying our overpriced books cuz they are hooked..." maybe not, boyos... maybe you have added the straw that broke the camel's back this time... we shall see.

We can extrapolate that this book may sell well cuz word will have gotten around and they may actually sell a lot of them so people can see what happened. The curiosity of readers is, after all, insatiable. It is what the soap opera and comic book industries are built on, y'know...LOL... But the patience of fans who have been constantly flipped off and ripped off is not unending. a decade of bad stories, denegration of characters and even creators may have finally taken it's toll of the die hard, thirty or forty year fan. I kinda hope so... cuz it is the only thing that Marvel will understand. Money being the ONLY criteria anymore.

The one ray of hope for Nighty is that he is, after all, a commercial property. He is worth megabux in merchandising. He is well loved within the Marvel multiverse. Like Jesus, and King Arthur and all the other heroic legends, he will rise again. We know this, don't we? But UNTIL he does, I urge everyone to quit buying Marvel comics. They obviously don't care what you , as a lowly fan, think or want... do they?

They have hinted at and tried to tweak the Nighty fans with his leaving or demise for months... nay, years!!... now and now, they have finally done him in in a very stupid way...not heroic , as they did Colossus, but STUPID... GREEDY...VILE... to the Nth degree.

Yeah... that's good ol' Marvel, all right...
I hear Green Lantern, over at DC is a good book. GL was one of Dave's favorite characters...and most of the decent writers and editors who fled the Hardass regime of white christian comics only and plotline by committee are over there. Of course, you know who else is over there making shitpiles of DC characters as he made shitpiles of X characters, too...beware the demon, Morrison! Evil incarnate is not spelled MEPHISTO... it is spelled Morrison!

Paty wrote:
Dave and Chris "killed" Thunderbird for a reason... not a marketing ploy. Having established a Native American hero, and a specific tribe, at that, they both found they didn't have any reference... GOOD reference...for the tribal customs, religion and such of the character. Remember, this was back in the dark ages before computers... or, at least, when computers were just being built and were taking up whole floors in large buildings! They didn't want to do him wrong...or portray bogus white man's versions of NA culture...so they took him out as a hero...

Thank goodness for that. I belong to a Native American forum, where one of our favorite pastimes is to make fun of the White Man's convoluted misconceptions about "ndn's".

Paty wrote:...a decade of bad stories, denegration of characters and even creators may have finally taken it's toll of the die hard, thirty or forty year fan.

Of whom I am one.

Paty wrote:I wonder when the copyrights and trademarks will revert to the Cockrum Estate... and allow people who value the character do something with him.

I would absolutely love that. I gather you don't like Wolverine, but they do have a highly entertaining friendship. Maybe you could buy him out too, and give him a makeover?

I'm glad Paty finally chimed in. As for merchandising, I've often wondered why they never thought to marked a Bamf doll. I know lots of folks would have bought one, not only peeps who knew who Nightcrawler (and, by extension, the little critters know as bamfs) was, but it would prolly have been cute and offbeat enough to attract others.

Good luck on the Marvel forums, guys. I don't keep up enough with current comics to know what to say.

And I like the funereal black, but it does strain my eyes (unlike Ms. Paty's).

"Humanity is a parade of fools, and I am at the front of it, twirling a baton." From Chapter 9 of _Brother Odd_ by Dean Koontz / from Chapter 10: "Life you can evade; death you cannot."

Actually I have a bamf foll. It was one of two made for dave by fans, my sis has the other one... which Dave gave to her before he died.

As to why Marvel never merchandised the bamf characters... well... about the time Dave did the first Nightcrawler mini series, which I colored... the smurf characters had come into vogue in america and had hit the cartoon market like a thunderbolt... they had a lot of publicityy and a lot of merchandising and were small, blue and, possibly fuzzy!!!

Now, the bamfs are small, blue, and definately fuzzy. At the time I thought a bamf doll would be a super idea... especially when Illyana had one on her bed in Kitty's Fairy Tale. the fans went nuts for them and kept writing us letters... real letters... back before emails... you know... the dark ages... asking where to purchase these little bundles of joy. HOWEVER... Marvel had, at the time, chicken shit lawyers and the spectre of a lawsuit by the Smurf guys was too much for them to bear. No bamf merchandising. dave also had creator rights on the characters... so he might have seen some bucks outta it... perish forbid!!!

In any event, no bamf dolls were ever made commercially. there were, indeed, two made by fans, and one, which Pirate Kurt made and gave to me after dave died. It stays in my bedroom and goes to cons with me and sits on my table... and we have had numerous people ask to buy it. NFS, guys... NFS!!! LOL

but thatis, alas, the story of why there are no bamfs decorating the pillows of teens and even adults who like fuzzy things to this very day. Maybe with disney controlling Marvel, it will be different. they know the value of merchandising and cute, fuzzy things... so we can hope for this, can't we? And they have big, strong, crackerjack lawyers... heh...so maybe ... just maybe...

As to going on forums, I usually don't go on these forums. I am legally blind and have to read the print from about an inch away from the screen... with seventeen power magnifiers that look like pregnant coke bottle bottoms ... with only one eye cuz the distance from screen to eye is too close to let me focus with both eyes... so I am reading at most about three words, tops, before I have to move my head further right to see the next three words. This does not make for fast reading. I used to be a very fast reader... it is a bummer being blind... I don't advise it for any tut the terminally masochistic. take care of your eyes, people, they are the most valuable things you possess!!!

In any event, it is horribly hard for me to read the type... usually , small spidery print, sometimes in pastel colors on equally pastel background... which disappears totally. this contrast is lovely to my eyes and the black background keeps me from going snowblind reading stuff from a couple of inches away. At least I am now a couple of inches away.. when I started on theis forum, my nose and the screen were having a magnetic relationship that was, quite frankly, shocking!!!

too many people posting in saying all manner of things... my eyes, sorry to say, cannot keep up. Try reading sentences in three word bursts and making sense of a long sentence at the end of it. it isn't easy, ... it is frustrating...at the very least... so this is one of the few places I do post. Dave started me here and, although I have has some long hiatuses, it is one of the few I come back to.the eyes get better day by day and although I may never get all my sight back, I have started to draw again... but reading posts is onerous at best... so I don't do much of it... and there are so many posts on so many boards... and at my advanced age, sooooo little time... sigh...

At my advanced age... I was older than Dave...still am, for that matter... I was sixty eight my last birthday a couple of months ago... SEVENTY looms, kids!!! OY VEH!!! I have neither the time, eyesight, nor interest inposting to yammering trolls who take pleasure in hounding everyone off the boards except those who agree with them! that masochistic I am not!

so, I post here for the nonce... the conversation is usually pretty good and the mods usually dropkick these little trolls through the goldposts of life... which is where they belong.

I hope this board continues... because, if they can bring back bucky Barnes, the one character that everyone always said would stay dead forever... hey... Nighty is too popular to be dead forever... and, this is, after all... comics! and the one bright spot that I can see on the horizon, is that disney... who now owns Marvel... has ALWAYS protected it's characters vehemently...We just need to find out who at disney to complain to... anyone got any suggestions? I don't mean flunkies... I want Corporate... I want Presidents and CEOs... Then we might see some action in restoring the Marvel characters to their former lustre.

Problem is, didn't Disney say they would let Marvel have free reign of their characters?

I'm also hoping there's something we can do about it -- so I am also boycotting Marvel comics. (Still supporting my local comic book store by buying OTHER books, mind you.)

By the way, Paty, I don't think I've had the chance to say hi to you. (offtopic, so sue me.) I'm kinda new here on the boards but I used to love reading through your rants in Cockrum Corner! LOL

~Def.

"A dedicated follower of nothing." -- graffitit artist in Brick Lane, London, England.
Right across the lane from the demon and just down the wall from Wolverine.

RIP Kurt Wagner. You were the character who brought in me into comics, who introduced me and inspired me. Now your death has sent me away again. Wherever you are in the Marvel Universe, I hope its someplace pleasant.

But why didn' he.. just. teleport partially as per many examples and teleport Hope away?

Why? Because Nick and Alonzo wanted him dead and they don't have any respect for Cockrum's addittions. They want to lend credence to bad writing. Make it important. This is admittedly worse then Morrisson's trying to write Jean Grey still dead in the future by writing a time jump sequence. But only by a little.
Thanks Nick Lowe, Thanks A. Alonzo, may your reign over the books I //used/ to collect be short. For the first time since the merger, I hope disney takes over editorial.

I'll check it out now Neling4. Thanks for the link. I admit this has upset me. It's worse then anger. I think about it and I just get...depressed. Maybe it's because I knew Dave. Maybe because since I was a kid, I could read Kurt comics and laugh and smile, and it was a great escape. Mostly I think it is because Marvel editorial on the x-books has fundamentaly misunderstood one of the primary purposes of comics, to escape and see people you like and respect. They are like friends and family you only get to see once a month.

I just can't think Alonzo or Lowe cares one whit about us fans. It's just turned me off to marvel. I'll get X-men forever. Claremont's world is the only real one to me. It's sad that Jim Shooter was our last great Editor in Chief, he had his own agenda, but he was the last EIC who cared about the stories and characters and kept a reign on editorial to keep things in line.

Yep Mr Quesada, you once said if you felt you were doing more harm then good you'd leave the EIC position, well guess what buddy

You are hurting the legacy of the great people who built the industry, and it's time you hung your hat and left. You let Cap get killed when the US was in a War? Have you ever BEEN on a military base? I saw Cap Posters all over Holloman AFB in my friend's apartments on base. Right now Joe, the only purpose you serve is keeping Brevart(spell?) and Alonzo out of your seat, the very best you can do now Joe, is keep two worse people from getting in.